


Bereavement Policy

by SmallishWormMasterOfTheUniverse



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Death, Gen, Ghost Sasha, Grief, Sasha POV, got some good anger-pacing in too, i literally wrote this bc my job made me mad, season two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29232306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmallishWormMasterOfTheUniverse/pseuds/SmallishWormMasterOfTheUniverse
Summary: The Magnus Institute’s bereavement policy gives employees one day to mourn friends, three to mourn family, and five to mourn life partners. Sasha didn’t expect it to be quite so binding.
Relationships: Timothy Stoker & Sasha James
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	Bereavement Policy

**Author's Note:**

> Hi the bereavement policy at my new job pissed me off so much that I wrote an entire fic about it. It's just like, 'Here's numerical values for how much each of the people in your life should mean to you!' And yet it is still way better than the (possibly nonexistent) bereavement policy at my old job. I hate capitalism and the United States of America. For the fic, though, I should note that the policy listed here does not correspond 100% to the actual policy at my actual job, because I'm really paranoid I'm going to get fired somehow and also I don't think Jonah Magnus would want to deprive himself of any kind of human misery for very long.
> 
> Content warnings for implications of suicidal ideation and a character being repeatedly referred to as "thing" and "it."

They’d read the bereavement policy over together, because they always did for things like that. Something to make the time pass, make the day more bearable, riffing back and forth on the corporate speak, poking holes in that bizarre and cruel calculus of human misery. “So it’s five days off for the death of a spouse, life partner, or child,” Tim had said, hand resting on her shoulder. “Which makes sense, obviously, ‘cause you get one day each for the stages of grief, but then there’s only three days for, quote, “miscellaneous relatives” and one day for close friends. How are you supposed to have enough time to mourn my tragic and untimely death, Sasha?”

She had laughed, because she couldn’t tell him that she _did_ worry about that some days. Those days when he’d come into the Archives with something sharp behind his eyes, and deflect her concern with jokes and memes and pop culture references until he sounded like some weirdo oracle. It wasn’t the mood for that, right now. “What am I, then?” she had said. “A miscellaneous relative or a close friend?”

“Relative, obviously. You’re my maiden aunt.”

And he’d laughed, and she’d laughed, and when her grandmother finally passed a week later he’d come over to her flat and cooked dinner for her while she tried to decide whether or not it was appropriate to cry.

Now she stands behind him, hand fading through his shoulder when she stops concentrating enough to keep it still. She hadn’t expected the bereavement policy to be quite so...binding, but it doesn’t matter. Not when the thing pretending to be her is sitting across from him, typing on a keyboard with fingers just a bit longer than Sasha’s and staring at the back of Tim’s head whenever he turns away. Tim had said she’d have three days, but that had only been another of his jokes. They were friends. She has one.

She focuses again on the cup of pencils, trying to really think about it this time. An actual written message, while risky, seems like the best course of action. Even _Jon_ can’t skeptic his way out of a floating pencil. But she just can’t get it to move. Not by touching it, not by fluttering her hands in the air around it, not with the ghost telekinesis powers that she doesn’t have but absolutely deserves. The pencils stay still, and the only difference is that the _thing_ looks over at them and, just for a moment, smiles. 

Sasha sits up in the Archives all night, waiting on pins and needles to see if dying feels any different the second time, but when the clock reads nine in the morning she’s still there. “Miscellaneous relative,” she says to herself, watching with mild amusement as Martin tries to decide whether to begin an email to Jon with “dear” or just his name. “You’re not so bad either, Stoker.” And then the thing comes in, wearing a shirt that’s been in the back of Sasha’s closet for years, and suddenly two more days isn’t nearly long enough.

The pencils didn’t work, and she doubts it was a matter of effort, so Sasha experiments. It’s a bit like being back in Artefact Storage. Isolate something, test its qualities, mark the results. Even the fear is the same, a buzzing not-quite-nausea that increases the more she tries and fails to make something _work._ The keyboard won’t press; the computer mouse won’t move, nor its pixel counterpart; her ghostly yells fade to static when Jon plays the tape back. And all the while that thing is there, smiling at her whenever it gets the chance.

It keeps its distance from Tim, though. Laughs half-heartedly at his jokes, fumbles the ball on their shared banter. Sasha can only watch as Tim shrinks in on himself, already looking so fragile and lost under his bandages. At the end of the workday he leaves without saying goodbye to anyone, and Sasha follows him as far as she can, knowing without knowing how that she’ll have to stop at the door.

She spends all night trying, but when the sun rises somewhere she can’t see on the third day, Sasha has nothing.

Tim walks into the Archives at eleven looking an absolute wreck. “Pain got bad,” he says when Martin asks, and then throws a wink and finger guns on the end of it as if by rote. Jon pokes his nose out of his office before slamming his door shut again, and the thing asks Tim if he’s hungover, and he rolls his eyes with more contempt than affection as he settles behind his desk. Sasha stands next to him, wraps an arm he can’t feel around his shoulders. All that’s left to do is watch.

And say goodbye, she supposes. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Because it’s harder than everything else, maybe. Because she’s always been better with her actions than her words.

“I don’t actually regret sleeping with you, you know,” she says. That’s good. Start by clearing the air. “It’s just— Well, if you start a romance you can only break up or get married. I don’t, I _didn’t,_ want to do either of those things with you, Tim. I don’t like it when things change.” She glances at Tim. He’s still typing at his computer, teeth clamped down on his bottom lip. It’s alright. This is for her, then. “I don’t like it at all when things change,” she repeats. “Because— because I don’t change? Not really. Not fast enough. And so I always get left behind. I thought the worst of it was, well, getting passed over for the Archivist position.” She looks up. The thing is staring at her with not enough pupil and too many teeth. “Apparently not. And now you’re all going to— to forget about me—” She takes a not-breath, forces herself to focus on Tim. “No. That’s not fair. Of me, I mean. I’m glad you’re alive.

"Tim, if you don’t hear anything else I say, at least hear this.” Sasha moves through the desk and positions herself so she’s facing Tim, looking right into his unfocused eyes. “I’m glad you’re alive, Tim. I want you to stay alive.”

Sasha sings through the night, all the bits of her favorite songs she can remember. She thinks of her favorite foods, too, and the press of her mother’s arms, and the park she used to walk in when she was sixteen. She lets memories play out in her head like movies: swapping secrets under a blanket with her best friend, teaching her younger sister to ride a bike, sobbing into Tim’s chest that evening so long ago now as he tries not to spill pasta sauce down her back. When morning comes she’s faded somehow, and faint, and when she says, “Life partners. Not bad, Stoker,” it comes out more the idea of a whisper than a whisper itself. 

But she stays, those last two days, finally out of reach of the thing. She drinks in everything she can, everything there ever was to love about being alive. And when she does finally die for good, Tim is there with her. He’s asleep in his office chair, cheek pressed against the desk. Not quite at peace, but resting, at least.

Sasha hopes she won’t see him again for a very long time.


End file.
